Banter of a Blond Republican Couple

Kid Pics

2009-07-15T07:40:00.000-05:00

I've noticed a tourist trend that appears to be quite common these days. I have not previously frequented touristy locales, so I don't know how old this phenomenon is. But when I see a tourist family out and about, it is very likely that one of the kids will be carrying and using the camera. And I'm not talking about 16-year-olds; these kids are about 10. Instead of having mom or dad take quality pictures, the kid(s) get to take photos that are undoubtedly subpar.

I assume this is happening because, when kids see things that look fun, they want to do them. Helping in the kitchen, driving the car, and holding the baby are some examples. When they see the camera, they demand, in whiny fashion, to be the family photographer, and mom and dad relent.

I figure there are two reasons that this is occurring. First, with the advent of digital cameras, there is no more film to waste. In the past, a parent would resist turning over the camera because there were only 24 or so photos on the roll of film, and he/she wouldn't want to pay to develop bad pictures. Now, large memory cards allow almost unlimited photos to be taken. If they are bad, they can be deleted later. The only risk is that the family will go home with no good photos from their trip.

The second reason is that, as far as I can tell, parenting is becoming more lax. In the past, parents might have said, "I'll run the camera. You can do it when you're older. Now shut up and look at the dinosaur or we're going home." Today, parents try to argue and reason, and when they give in once, kids know that they can get their way next time. So parents simply surrender the camera. Hence, the multitude of kiddie photog wannabes.

This concludes my essay on the interplay of modern parenting and modern technology.

DC !

2009-07-14T18:02:00.002-05:00

More pictures coming soon but first sleep, grocery shopping, and lots of calf stretching.

Who's Your Daddy?

2009-07-10T07:58:00.000-05:00

I never really paid a whole lot of attention to the question of whether Thomas Jefferson really fathered children with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves. From what little I gleaned, I thought they had proved it was true. But then I saw this book at Barnes & Noble last week: In Defense of Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemings Sex Scandal. In it, author William Hyland, Jr purports to debunk the story in true lawyerly fashion, since that's what he is.

I don't think I'll read the book, because I'm not that interested in the story, but I decided to poke around a little to learn more about it. Here you can read the reports of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. The majority report says TJ is the father, the minority report says it is not proven. Here are a few observations of mine:

There seems to be a strong yearning by many for this to be true. I don't know if it's a racial thing, a "tar the Founding Fathers" thing, or what.

The fact that Jefferson was home during the window of conception for each kid is strong evidence for paternity.

The DNA evidence really isn't, though, because only one Hemings descendant was able to be tested, and it doesn't rule out Jefferson relatives (like his brother Randolph) as being the father. All it proves is that one Hemings kid (Eston) was fathered by a Jefferson.

The TJF majority seems to lend too much credence to the fact that one Hemings kid, Madison, stated in 1873 that Jefferson was his dad, and that Hemings family lore says Jefferson was their father. People like to believe that they have famous relatives. People would much rather be Thomas Jefferson's kid than Randolph Jefferson's, so that would easily explain the family lore, which becomes less credible with each generation. Plus, Madison would obviously have been too young to have any firsthand remembrance of these times, and he didn't have a fatherly relationship or anything with Jefferson that would corroborate his gut feeling.

All things considered, I am skeptical of Thomas Jefferson's paternity in this case.

The Beav Plays Ball

2009-07-09T08:22:00.000-05:00

On Monday the Beav's baseball camp started. I took an early lunch break to get him there on time and we go sign in. I stole a glance at his schedule before he headed in and see that he is playing a game at 8pm, right before I pick him up at 9:15. So I ask if I could come and watch. The guys says "Sure, there will be lots of other moms there."

My external reply: "Great, thanks"
My internal reply: "What! You think I'm his mother? Do I seriously look old enough to have a high schooler? I know we live in crazy times but I think 8 is a little young to have a kid. Even if I had he was just barely old enough for camp and I had him at 16, I would still have to be 30."

I might be worried that at the ripe old age of 24, I am beginning to look old and haggard had I not recently been in a conversation where someone expressed disbelief that I was in a certain homegroup because "Isn't that for couples? You're not old enough to be married are you?" Apparently, I look old enough to have a 15 year old but not old enough to be married.

Anyway, I head over to watch him play that evening. I grab my camera and get in my stealthy picture taking mood so as to be assured great pictures and a non-embarrassed brother. The sun was setting. The light was perfect. The grass was green and bright. The boys were out in the field with the Olsen field sign right behind them and Kyle field behind that. I really couldn't have imagined a better place for a Aggie sister to take pictures of her brother playing ball. And you will have to imagine it as well because as soon as I turned the camera on, the battery died.

But it was still a nice night. By 8:30 it has cooled down to 90 and there was a bit of a breeze in the stands. It was the first time I had been comfortable outside in a number of weeks. And I did get to watch him play which I rarely get to do so I left happy and he left tired...and hungry. I forgot how much teenage boys eat, especially when the eat "dinner" at 4:00 and play 4 more hours of baseball.

Last night he finished up camp so we get to get to hang out this morning then head back to the airport. He will be flying home while Craig and I start our little summer vacation. It would be an understatement to say that I haven't seen a whole lot of Craig this summer so I am super excited about having 3.5 days for just the two of us. Unfortunately, life has been pretty crazy for me lately so I have no posts saved up. You'll just have to wait until next week to hear all our crazy adventures in ....

It's a fun campus, really it is.

2009-07-08T10:35:00.001-05:00

The Beaver arrived on Friday. After spending the 4th of July at my aunt and uncles, we headed home. I wanted to show him around campus and when I emailed the Hospitality department, they said that there weren't any official tours this Sunday but they would be open from 12-4. So we ate a quick lunch and headed out so could get there in time. Except when they said the visitors center would be open from 12-4, I guess they meant every other weekend. On this weekend, the one I asked about, it was closed for the holiday weekend.

Oh, well. I know the campus fairly well, having spent more of my life living here than pretty much anywhere else in the world, so I just made it up as I went. We walked all around, seeing Sul Ross, Sbisa, the Rec, Kyle Field, Rudder Tower, the Century tree, Fish Pond, G. Rollie White, some dorms and the Bonfire Memorial. It only took about an hour and a half which was long enough because we were both hot and I was beginning to get sunburned. It would have been nicer to go in the evening but remember, we hurried so we could make it to the visitors center. I still think he enjoyed it but I tried to get across the fact that normally, there are actually people here. But it is a Sunday afternoon on a holiday weekend in the summer so the only people we saw were a couple of campus police men giving us funny looks.

Afterwards, I was going to take him out to eat at the Dixie Chicken but we didn't feel like a big meal (we'll try to get to it later this week) so I thought frozen custard from Shakes would be fun. It probably would have been except Shakes is also closed on Sunday. Geez, you would think I was back in Utah. In theory I like it when places are closed on Sunday but it is less than pleasant when you don't remember that and drive all the way down University to not have ice cream. We ended up at Dairy Queen. It's not the coolest place in College Station to show him, but you can't really beat two dipped ice cream cones for $3.

Dad is back.

2009-07-07T16:53:00.002-05:00

He's home! Yah!

My Plan for DC

2009-07-07T08:01:00.001-05:00

People who visit, or live in, or read about Washington, DC know that housing there is expensive and many people who work there commute a long way. As the federal government grows like the insatiable leviathan it is, this problem will only get much, much worse. At the same time, talk persists about the supposed need to give DC representation in Congress because of all the people living there.

Well, I have a solution for all this. We need to take a number of federal agencies and move them somewhere else. To Cleveland or Omaha or wherever, just somewhere outside of Washington.

Now, some agencies need to be in DC because they have to be near the White House or Capitol Hill. So DOJ, State and other major agencies should stay. But does the IRS really need to be there? Tax collection would seem to be something that could be done anywhere. And maybe the USDA should be somewhere close to where farmers actually operate. There are a number of agencies that should be able to move.

I understand that the leaders of all agencies probably have to appear before Congress fairly often. A couple of buildings could be set aside for executive offices. Each agency or department that relocates could have an office in DC with a few senior employees.

This plan would have large costs up front, due to the need to relocate equipment, records, and people. But in the long term, I think it would save money. The government would be able to pay lower cost-of-living adjustments to employees living in lower-cost locales. An exodus of employees from DC would lower the cost of living there, as well. Many government employees also get mass-transit benefits; the number of people receiving this money would be reduced. Maybe they could cancel the planned Metro expansion to Dulles airport and save $3 billion.

Moving these agencies would provide a boost to the cities that receive them. A new, stable employer would increase local tax revenues. Unfortunately, Congress would get involved in deciding what agencies move where, so decisions would be made based on where senior Congressmen live, not on more relevant criteria. But that would be better than doing nothing, I think.

I think this move would also encourage better people to run for Congress. Congressmen have to maintain residences back home and in DC, and this is very difficult unless you are rich. This is only one reason that people choose to avoid politics (others are media scrutiny and the need to raise money), but it might help some. Also, more good people might come work for the government if housing cost less and commutes were shorter.

This plan obviously will not be carried out, but I'd just like to put it out there.

Nourishing Beginnings: Part 3

2009-07-06T08:52:00.002-05:00

So now that I've talked about what we try to eat and try to avoid, I thought I'd try to talk about how we do it. I'm really lucky I started hearing about all this when I first started regularly cooking.

If I had been married five years and had an arsenal of recipes I regularly used, it would have been quite a bit harder on both of us for us to change our ways. And I also was raised to eat fairly healthy so many of the changes I had to make were small and that helped. But even so, the way we eat isn't typical and it takes work to stop ourselves from falling back to our old ways.

When I started to switch, I realized there were two main ways of making our new lifestyle happen: Keeping our mindset but changing the ingredients and coming up with new recipes.

Changing the old ones was easiest on us - at first. It just involved switching from low-fat yogurt and milk to full fat, adding an extra vegetable to a casserole we already loved or making a few substitutions. It's a great place to start because you can make great changes which motivate you to make more. And you can do it gradually so your kids/husband won't revolt because they feel like they are starving.

Take tuna salad. I used to mix mayonnaise, tuna and a stalk of celery and call it a day. Now I use half mayonnaise, half yogurt, onions, celery, a few homemade lactofermented pickles cut up, a can of beans and serve on wheat bread with tomato and lettuce. I easily changed an okay meal to a great one full of vegetables, probiotics and fiber.

But another one of Craig's favorite meals to make used to be the classic chicken and stuffing casserole made with Stove Top and Campbell's cream of whatever-you-want soup. And I won't lie - it's tasty and really hits the spot on a cold rainy day. But now when I make it, I use this recipe and throw in a few extra vegetables as well. It's better but still not needs some work. If I made my own stuffing, it would be all real food.

And we really love chicken packets. I've thought about making my own yogurt cheese to replace the cream cheese and then making my own dough to replace the crescent rolls. But what have I just done to those two meals? They used to be quick and easy. Now they are a big pain and not so great for a weeknight anymore.

Ingredient replacement is also where it can get expensive to do "organic/healthy." People see Annie's macaroni and cheese in the store and think to themselves that they can't go healthy because that box is three times more than the blue one. And unless you snag a really great coupon, Kashi is quite a bit more than the typical box of fruit loops. So yes, it is more time-consuming and/or more expensive to go healthy if you try and stick with your old ideas of what you meals should look like.

That brings me to the second way to do it - complete overhaul. I had to come up with a lot of new recipes in order to make healthy eating work with our budget and not kill myself. I've stopped eating cereal and milk for breakfast. With a little bit of prep work, oatmeal, muesli, or granola and yogurt are just as easy to grab in the morning but cheaper since they don't use much milk. And good milk is like gold around here.

We also eat a lot of beans and eggs. One of the dishes that we brought into our repertoire is this cheesy lentil and rice casserole. It's not necessarily that much healthier than the chicken recipes would be (once overhauled) but so much quicker and cheaper. I can make two or three meals from the same big pot of lentils or pinto beans. And eggs, toast and green smoothies is always a dinner favorite around here. I'll be honest though, not all of those bean meals would have been tasty to me a year ago, but as our diets have slowly changed, so have our taste buds.

And it's worth it. Having a few really cheap meals every week leaves my budget open to the items I feel we need to spend more on. You have to think about your overall budget. It's hard because when you shop you are seeing individual prices but that is one thing I really learned from my grocery challenge last month. Yes, the eggs I'm buying from the farmer's market are slightly more expensive that the typical grocery store egg, but still not as expensive as the meat that it is actually replacing. Same thing with milk, my milk is more expensive but I'm using less of it and getting more nutrition out of it so I think it is worth it.

And we can still have the new healthier versions of my old favorite comfort foods, on the weekend when I want a nicer meal or if I know we are entertaining others who may have pickier palettes.

But where do you find these recipes? Well, other bloggers of course! Here are a few of my favorite healthy foodie blogs. (I don't agree with them about everything, but in general their mindset is similar to mine and I've gotten a lot of good information from them all).

Nourishing Gourmet - Just started a new carnival, pennywise platter, full of frugal healthy recipes!
Kelly the Kitchen Kop
Cheese Slave
Keeper of the Home*
Passionate Homemaking*

*Not strictly food related but has lots of recipes and nutritional information

I want my inheritance!

2009-07-02T23:23:00.005-05:00

I just wrote a comment about how I don't feel guilty, only convicted. Well, I lied.

Not intentionally, but in writing that, I was referring to food/nutrition situations. And in that case it is true. I realize that for the most part, what I eat isn't a sin issue. And if I come to the conclusion that something needs to change, I can understand how it doesn't matter how much I think about the past, I can't change it. I just move forward, making changes as I can.

But when it comes to my faith walk, I am not very good about differentiating between guilt and conviction at all. And I need to be because one is good and the other is not. In theory I know the difference. I can even describe it for you.

Guilt that leads to condemnation is depressing. It brings you down. It's past-focused. It's also sinful because it's self-centered. I'm not thinking about how God took away my sin or has the ability to "renew a right spirit within me." but instead have started focusing on what I did wrong or how I messed up or worse - how I appear to others. For that to logically hold water it has to start from the idea that I could have done anything better. As a Christian, the fact that I continually fail at living out God's perfect will should not be shocking or depressing. It should be obvious. I should know that apart from God, I never stood a chance. But if I only feel guilty over my own self's lack of goodness, I must have been thinking there was something good in there to begin with. Guilt is focused on the sin (what I did) and not the forgiveness (what God did) and it doesn't lead to any changes.

Conviction is the work of the Holy Spirit, it brings to light areas that I still need to let God have control over, to let him into them so he can mold me into his image. It's honest sorrow over sin and it opens me up to ask God to restore me and to use me to glorify Him. That type of guilt, what I call conviction, is God-focused and God-glorifying. It comes from the idea that yes, I failed at ____ because I am human and sinful. It doesn't excuse it, it doesn't mean that it's not a big deal. It just means that it has to be God that fixes it. And until he does, I can boast in His glory and my weakness. God's power is made perfect in my weakness. I'm not perfect, but He loves me. I mess up, but He forgives.

Most people would say they don't like feeling guilty and on the surface I don't either. Except for the part of me that does. It means I can go on doing what I am doing without actually having to change, but I can still feel like I'm a good person because "at least I feel guilty." I don't even like to admit that to myself but it is true. Guilt is hard to give up, so I cling to it even knowing that is is dragging me down when what I really need is conviction.

But the thing with conviction is - it means a loss of control. Real conviction, turning those things over to God, that is freedom. But it comes at a cost. I've given them up, those issues, those sins, now they belong to God. And if I have really given them to God, he is probably going to start working on them. Like Aslan removing Eustace's scales - it might be painful but it is good.

I really like this little worship song:

Lord prepare me
to be a sanctuary
pure and holy
tried and true

But I like to think about that song at the end result. Yes, I want to be a sanctuary. I want to be tried and true. But that isn't how it goes.

That song is asking to be prepared. It's talking about verbs, not nouns. Well, I don't always want that, I don't want to be prepared to be a sanctuary, I just want to be one. I want to be tried and true without having to go through trials, refined with out having to go through a fire. I just want to be a great Christian without God having to go through all that work shaping me into one.

I've been struggling with this lately, especially in the area of meekness. One of the Christian radio programs I listen to has been focusing on being meek. At first I wasn't really interested but then she started describing what meekness, and a lack of it, looked like. And I realized her description of meek didn't fit me very well.

Swift to hear, slow to speak? Peaceable? Gentle? I don't really think I am.

Unperturbed and unruffled? Composed? I don't think most people would describe me like that.

Hurried? Harsh? That sounds more like it. But oh wait, that is in the lacking meekness category.

Exorbitant passion? Ouch, that touched a nerve.

There are so many aspects to meekness but it hit me that in each of the two or three main areas where I feel like I am struggling, it all comes back to having (or not having as the case may be) a meek spirit. And as the first few days of the program went by, I just kept feeling worse and worse. Yes, I get it God, I'm not meek. I'm convicted.

Then several situations arose and my response was, you guessed it - not very meek. But I didn't mean to be like that. It's just I can be passionate and going at full speed and I have a type A personality.Or I'm a stressed person, that's not my fault. Or at least that is what I told myself, but I still felt bad and "Agghh, I was so mad at myself. Maybe I should just give up blogging and this and that and all these circumstances where I tend to act a certain way.

But then I realized, I wasn't acting convicted. I was acting guilty. It wasn't the situations that needed to change, it was my heart. And while I was going around annoyed at myself for
acting a certain way, I wasn't asking God to change me, or asking him to give me a meek spirit, not asking for forgiveness from those my harsh responses might have offended or my hasty actions impacted. And you know what that indicated to me - I lacked meekness (I told you, it all comes back to meekness). So in a way, I'm back to square one. But this time, I'm not going to "feel bad" about it, I'm just going to ask God to change it. Because I want my inheritance.

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5

Nourishing Beginnings: Part 2

2009-07-02T08:46:00.001-05:00

Okay, now that you have a idea of how I feel about food, what do we really eat around here? Well, as much as I try to avoid "diets" with lists of dos and don'ts, sometimes it is easier to explain things in that way. So here is what we try to do:

Lots of fruits and vegetables. Local and in season if possible (I wish we were better about this but I really do love bananas). We don't really do organic. Often I get it from the farmer's market and it is practically if not "certified" organic. For things we get from the store, I just buy the general stuff.
Variety of whole grains, mostly soaked or sprouted. I don't typically make our sandwich bread but I do make bread for dinner with soaked whole wheat (and sometimes rye). Our sandwich bread is normally any basic 100% whole wheat bread (I try to find one without high fructose corn syrup) but lately I've been getting Ezekiel 4:9 bread which is made with wheat, barley, spelt, lentils and millet. It's expensive but I love it. We also eat a lot of oats, brown rice and sometimes quinoa.
Variety of protein sources. I think meats are a great source of proteins and nutrients and shouldn't be avoided for fear of fat. I try to have one chicken, one pork/beef and one fish meal each week but we also get a lot of protein from eggs (pastured when possible), beans (soaked) and dairy.
Lots of healthy fats. But my idea of healthy fats is not what commercials and packaging would say it is. I don't mind saturated fats. We eat lots of butter, full fat (and raw if budget allows) milk, sour cream, cream cheese, yogurt, etc. I cook with coconut oil and olive oil and avoid vegetable oils and low-fat items.
Lots of probiotics and fermented food. Yogurt, kefir and lacto-fermented foods are all fairly regular parts of my diet now.
Few processed foods/snacks. Yes, we occasionally buy crackers or cookies and I don't turn down sweets when they are offered by others but I try to avoid buying them and for most of my baked goods I try and use less processed sweeteners like honey or maple syrup.

Things I wish we did (or did better):

Organic/local fruit and veggies. It would be nice to buy all our fruits and vegetables organically and locally. But right now, I think our food budget is better off spent on other things. Quantity over quality is our produce motto at this moment.
Organic/grass-fed/pastured meat. I do buy a lot of our meat locally from the university but it isn't definitely isn't organic or pasture raised. I wish we could do pastured chickens and I would love to have a big freezer so I could buy half a beef but it isn't practical right now. Oh well, maybe someday.
Less sugar and sweets. Getting sugar out of our diet is one of the hardest changes we have been making. I often feel like it is two steps forward and one step back but we try our best.
Less processed pantry items and condiments - like mayo and ketchup, cheese, cream cheese, spaghetti. I don't buy low fat versions but many are still loaded with sugar and preservatives that I would prefer to avoid.

Calling All Aggies!

2009-06-30T15:39:00.006-05:00

The Beav is coming to visit later this week. I'll pick him up Friday and we'll spend the holiday with my aunt, uncle, and cousins before heading back to good ol' BCS for a few days. He will be attending baseball camp for most of that time, but I am planning on dragging him away from that for a little while to show him around. I have to do a really good job showing off A&M's assets because, unfortunately, my other brother is a t-sip and might try to persuade the young Beaver to go to that other university in Texas. For obvious reasons, this will not do.

So I need your help! If you had 24-48 hrs in which to show a fun loving 15-year-old sports fan of the male persuasion around campus and town, where would you go? Where would you eat? What are the must-sees?

Thanks and gig'em,

Getting Old

2009-06-30T08:04:00.001-05:00

Growing up, I remember my mom looking at the paper or TV, finding out that some famous person died, and remarking about it. I would have no idea who she was talking about. Conway Twitty is one example that comes to mind.

Now, there are still famous people dying that I haven't heard of. However, more and more people that I have heard of are dying. Ed McMahon and Farrah Fawcett are two examples from last week (Michael Jackson doesn't count; he was well known to today's youth). I can imagine that many youngsters today don't know of them, and I don't really know of them from personal experience. Their peaks of fame came before my time, I just know of them. But I can picture the day not so far off when I say, "Oh, such and such person died," and little Junior will say, "Never heard of him."

Reading for a "Holiday"

2009-06-29T08:19:00.002-05:00

Craig and I are planning a little mini-vacation this summer. Of course, being thrifty, I headed off to the library to pick up some guide books. I was in hurry so I didn't really look at them very before I got them, I just grabbed three and left.

When I got home, I realized that one of the books was geared more for British visitors to the area and didn't really have much information for me to glean. But I am still glad I picked it up. It is hilarious. The first third of the book has general information about visiting America. Here are a few of the more interesting sections:

Toilets:
Restroom or bathroom are common terms, toilet is acceptable. Few people recognize washroom, loo or WC...Facilities may be clean and well equipped or filthy...Public toilets are sporadically placed but well marked. Carry toilet paper.

I agree with them that the level of cleanliness in public bathrooms is quite varied, but almost all of them have toilet paper.

Currency:
Bill denominations are $1, $2 (very rare), $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $1000 (rare) and $10,000 (rarer)....Coins include the copper 1-cent piece, 5-cent nickel, 10-cent dime, 25-cent quarter, 50-cent half dollar (rare) and an extremely rare Susan B. Anthony dollar.

Now I don't come across that many Susan B. Anthony dollar coins around but I would say they are seen more often than $1000 and $10,000 bills. Or maybe I am just going shopping with the wrong type of people.

Road Signs:

Traffic lights are red, yellow and green...A favourite (and highly illegal) trick is to jump the red light, that is, enter the intersection when the signal is yellow and about to turn red.

There emphasis on jump is amusing since I have never heard it called that. Have any of you ever heard someone says jump instead of run a red light?

On a similar note, their list of US driving terms is interesting too. They do a fair job of defining them but I have to wonder how often the terms boulevard stop, CNG, metering lights, rubbernecker, or sig-alert come up in the average tourists stay here. The general term use is a little better as I can see how they might need to now that chips are crisps, holiday is a public holiday (as opposed to a vacation) and downtown means a city center. But they were a few misses too. I've been able to survive in the US for quite some time even if I couldn't tell you that a raw bar was a section found in restaurants containing tasty bits which have been marinated but not cooked.

But if you ever have the change to pick up a non-American written travel guide I highly recommend it. Seeing yourself through others' eyes can be quite amusing.

Nourishing Beginnings: Part 1

2009-06-25T08:20:00.004-05:00

I was talking with Craig yesterday about food and it got me thinking. The reason I first started doing "undercover hippie" things was because of nutrition. I found blogs because of their nutritional information and recipes but when I was there, I stumbled across lots of other hippie things to try out. So it struck me as odd that I've never really talked about my food philosophy. Maybe I've mentioned things here and there about how we don't do "low fat" or or how I like to soak grains and eat lots of beans, but I've never really summarized it. Perhaps that is because it has been changing so much but I still think I should try and put it down in words as much for my own sake as for anyone else's.

First off, I have to talk about Craig's involvement in all this. Craig is the best. He came into our marriage a better cook than many men but his dinners usually involved some sort of Campbell's soup. Soon I had completely taken over the kitchen and was trying to replace his cheesy casseroles with odd things like quinoa and lentils. Despite his eager willingness to try new things, I try to watch myself from kicking his opinions out. I want to cook things he enjoys eating even if that means compromising what I may want. After all, this is his home too. But between the two of us, we have found a good balance. If it wasn't for him reigning in some of my wilder ideas, who knows where we would be or what fad we would be following. And if wasn't for me, who knows what his average daily sodium intake would be.

I guess if I had to give my food philosophy a name, it would be following the real food movement with some nourishing traditions ideas thrown in there.

I wish I could explain better what I mean by real, but I can't. Some people would define it as sustainable, local, and organic food, or say it is traditional food prepared in a traditional way like your grandmother would make. Others would define it by what it is not - it's not industrialized and processed food. But what I like about the concept of real food is that it doesn't need a fancy definition. If I take something and really think about it, I can normally decide fairly easily if I think it is a real food or not. Fruit, vegetables, milk, eggs, and meat are real food. But stop and think of Cheerios or Clif Bars - as much as I can theorize about whether they are healthy or not, they aren't real food. So I try and buy real food, or real ingredients, that I can use to make other real things.

My belief is that God knew what he was doing when he made both our bodies and food. He didn't have to make us depending on food for nutrition, and He didn't have to give us taste buds. He gave us food as a gift. He made food to be enjoyed. It seems like so much of what we hear about food is about trying to avoid the "bad" parts of food - the calories or the fat. And I don't just mean women's magazines or diet aid commercials. The American Heart Association says a healthy adult can safely have up to one egg a day. That makes it sound like eggs are something to be feared when in reality, they are an amazingly nutritious, and cheap, source of protein. (Here is where I might say something more about the AHA but I routinely spend their money so I won't.)

I try to avoid that "food is bad" mentality. I tend to think more about how I can get enough off all the nutrients, all the proteins and fiber and vitamins and minerals my body needs, in the amount of food I can eat. At that point it becomes obvious that I have to eat nutrient-dense food to do that. I can't get what I need if I fill myself up with empty food like white flours, sugars, and processed food. That wouldn't be being a good steward. I'll stick with the stuff God made, it works pretty well at nourishing my body.

But on the other side of that, I can't let healthy eating become an idol either. Whole grains, no matter how much you soak them, will not make me a better Christian. And I can't get so engrossed in nutrition that I begin to spend my time fretting over every little thing I come into contact with. That is where Craig comes in again. He encourages me to do the best I can with the resources I have, and to let the other stuff go. And I know I can trust his judgment so if he says stop worrying, I usually can. That about wraps up my food philosophy, later I'll talk more about what that actually means in our day to day life.

What you don't want to hear on the radio:

2009-06-24T13:16:00.008-05:00

"Don't worry, tomorrow the high is only 101 so it is cooling off a bit."

Why do I live in a world where 101 is considered "cooling off?" Who decided we should ~~bake~~ move back here again? And where exactly is he right now?

My Kind of Movies

2009-06-24T08:08:00.002-05:00

I have figured out a certain type of movies I like, but I don't think these movies fit into an existing genre, so I have invented my own. For lack of a more succinct term, I call it "movies about a dying way of life." It focuses on people who are part of a vocation or culture that they can see is giving way to changing times. Many of these movies might be called Westerns, but they're not of the Main Street showdown variety (although one movie in my genre has such a scene). It's just that, in the US, the West is the best example of a place that changed with the times, and took a lot of people with it. You could almost call this genre "Indian movies," as many, but not all, films in this genre deal with them. I can identify with these movies because I appreciate the romantic ideal of hardy people living in a sparsely populated, wide open, untouched land. While I appreciate the people depicted in these movies, it is clear that it was inevitable that their ways of life would disappear as time moved on and technology passed them by.

Here are some archetypical movies in the genre:

Dances with Wolves - disappearance of the Plains' Indian lifestyle
Open Range - disappearance of the open-range ranching lifestyle
Last of the Mohicans - end of a particular Indian tribe
Jeremiah Johnson - the end of the mountain man lifestyle
The Last Samurai - end of the samurai lifestyle; this one gives my genre some breadth

I'd be interested to know if a) you can think of any movies to add to my list, and b) if this genre already exists, and I'm not breaking new ground.

Confession

2009-06-23T08:03:00.000-05:00

I have a confession. I figure I had better tell you know because between that last post and my (hopefully) upcoming posts this summer about cleaning, you will find out - I have an addiction to labeling.

I just love to labels things, anything, it doesn't even matter if it even needs a label. Yes, I can tell perfectly well by looking at a glass jar of popcorn that it holds popcorn, but I still made a label. Why not?

I come by this obsession naturally. My dad is a big labeler. And he taught me well. At home, I try to keep my labeling in check, and it helps that I don't have an actual label maker. I have to print out strips of paper with a cute font and laminate them with contact paper. It works well but takes a bit of time.

At work though, I have a fancy electronic label maker at my disposal. It's so quick and easy to use that when I go to check it out, I get so excited about all the labeling I am about to do. I was in charge of organizing the lab and I must say, I went a bit crazy. Every single cabinet was labeled with a number and a letter then items were also listed in a database I made that told you what number/letter to find that item under. But of course, I also labeled each cabinet with the items found inside for at-a-glance finding. Every tweezer and timer is labeled with its "owner's" initials. Every pipette is labeled with its purpose. I love it!

What about you? Are you a closet labeler? Or do you have another semi-embarrassing confession to make? Come on, it's fun!

More School Needed?

2009-06-22T08:01:00.000-05:00

One thing I found noteworthy when I started studying international affairs was how often our bad education system came up. Plenty of articles talk about how the US' position in the world will change during this century, and most of them list our bad education system as one reason our dominance may erode. It seems like when I listen to domestic political debates about education, plenty of people argue, "Oh, our schools have problems, but they're not that bad." Of course, many of these people have ties to the public education system. But my point is that, in the field of international affairs, the fact that US schools are bad is not subject to debate.

A recent article in The Economist (by the way, I really wish I could find a video clip of this to insert here) talks about American kids being "underworked" compared to kids in other countries, in terms of hours per day and days per year of school, and cite this as a reason for our educational problems:

American children also have one of the shortest school days, six-and-a-half hours, adding up to 32 hours a week. By contrast, the school week is 37 hours in Luxembourg, 44 in Belgium, 53 in Denmark and 60 in Sweden. On top of that, American children do only about an hour’s-worth of homework a day, a figure that stuns the Japanese and Chinese.

That Sweden number can't be true, can it? Anyway, the article lists some reasons why this is the case:

Powerful interest groups, most notably the teachers’ unions, but also the summer-camp industry, have a vested interest in the status quo. But reformers are also up against powerful cultural forces. One is sentimentality; the archetypical American child is Huckleberry Finn, who had little taste for formal education. Another is complacency. American parents have led grass-root protests against attempts to extend the school year into August or July, or to increase the amount of homework their little darlings have to do.

I can buy the idea that this is a problem, to some extent, especially the idea that kids forget a lot of stuff over the summer. That means they spend a lot of time catching up at the beginning of a new school year. However, I think that we should also look at what happens when kids are in school. A significant part of that 6.5 hours per day gets wasted on study hall, lame electives, and disciplinary issues. If the school day became more efficient, it may not need to be longer. On the other hand, the article brings up the problem of latchkey kids who get home before their parents do. This would be less of an issue if the school day was extended.

I'd be interested to read about how other countries do discipline. From my subbing experience, it seems like plenty of time is wasted trying to keep kids in line. I think a focus of the quality of a school day is more important than focusing on its length. If kids are wasting time and/or not learning, an extra hour or two per day won't change that.

Foreign Affairs Friday: Election/Revolution

2009-06-19T20:47:00.000-05:00

Last week, as I eagerly anticipated the Iranian election, I surveyed the excitement for opposition candidate Moussavi and thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if Ahmadinejad won, but everyone though the election was rigged?" That's what happened in Ukraine in 2004, leading to mass protests and the rise of a more democratic, pro-Western government. Protests also occurred in Moldova this year, as I recently wrote about, although lasting benefits have yet to arise there.

Well, my scenario is playing out in Iran right now. The benefit of having elections in an authoritarian regime is increased legitimacy for the government, at home and abroad, even if the elections aren't totally fair. The downside of having elections is that citizens might take them seriously, and expect to actually have a say in government. The Iranians aren't accepting what they see as a rigged election. Many US commentators have said that from a policy perspective, it wasn't going to matter who won the election. The Iranians appear to disagree.

Another factor that is present in Iran that may help the protestors is the split among the ruling elites. While the Ayatollah is behind Mahmoud, other big names, like Rafsanjani and Khatami, are behind Moussavi. When a regime stays united, like the Chinese were during Tiananmen in 1989, protests can be overcome, but when there are splits, as there were in Eastern bloc nations as the Soviet Union crumbled, then change is possible.

Here's hoping that we see some positive results from the events in Iran, not only for the US, but for the people in Iran. I don't think it would hurt things if Obama would express a little support for the protestors. I suppose he gets some credit, though, for the State Department's moves to keep Twitter open for the protestors.

Stellan Update

2009-06-19T14:07:00.001-05:00

Just a few days ago I took down my Stellan banner because he seemed to be doing so much better. But now, he's not. Please pray.

Craig to the rescue!

2009-06-19T08:35:00.004-05:00

Last night I was out at hg having a lovely time chatting with the other wives, you know, "fellowshipping." But at 9:30 when we started wrapping up and I go to leave, I realize I can't find my keys. I take everything out of my purse, but still couldn't find them. Looked around their kitchen, still couldn't find them. Hmm, maybe I just left them in the car. Except the car was locked and it was dark. So I look around the kitchen more and try not to panic. One of the husbands gets me a flashlight and I go out to the car again. There they are, in the ignition of my locked car.

Now to be honest, I didn't handle it very well. I even said a bad word. (Okay, I know most of you don't think "suck" is a bad word, but it has been ingrained in my head as a bad word since I was little so to me it's bad, and I said it anyway last night).

But it had been having a rough couple of days and this was about to be the straw that broke the camel's back. The house was about 20 minutes outside of town and even if I got a ride back to my apartment, I couldn't get in to get the extra car key because the only key to the apartment was locked inside my car. That left two options: call AAA and wait for them to come unlock the car or have another one of the husbands, a police officer, attempt to break into our car. He said he could do it if he had the tools but as he didn't, he would be willing to try using a coat hanger. I choose option three: call Craig.

Now I knew he was too far away at the moment to actually do anything about it but I didn't really think either of my options sounded like it would get me home before 11pm and I was about to just sit down and cry on the floor (did I mentioned it had been a bad couple of days?) and I was hoping he would have an idea or at least prevent the crying.

No sooner than I had said "Craig, I locked the keys in the car" did he reply "Well, did you check the back window?" Of course, how could I forget the back window! Our car windows are by far the most annoying part of our vehicle (remember this?). Well, all except one is fixed now. But that one not only refuses to roll up and down when it is supposed to, but it randomly falls down. I say randomly but it isn't really. It happens - when it is snowing, when it is raining, and when I am driving alone on a dark road and can't possible stop to lift it up again. But last night, I was grateful. In less than 30 seconds, I was able to push it down, unlock the car, and retrieve my keys. Crisis averted. Sometimes having a quick thinking husband and a crappy car can be a useful combination.

PS ~ Now that I have told you the secret to breaking into our car, please don't come and steal it. You probably wouldn't want it if you had it.

One down, twelve to go.

2009-06-18T08:53:00.001-05:00

Okay, I finally finished cleaning the kitchen! I started Saturday afternoon and it was only supposed to take one afternoon, but life did not work out that way. I told myself not to get distracted by other things once I started, but as you will soon read, it really couldn't have been helped.

First, I needed to empty the trash. I couldn't clean the fridge with a full trash can. But it leaked some incredible nasty brown fluid all over my floor. I still have no idea what it was since I didn't eat anything other than cereal and milk at home the whole week due to VBS. But ignoring the grossness of that (please ignore the grossness of that), I still had to clean the floor up. So I went to grab a few rags and my bottle of vinegar from under the bathroom sink but my rags were all wet. My sink was leaking and everything underneath it was soaked. I had to figure out how to turn the water off and clean up the bathroom.

Over an hour after I "started" cleaning the kitchen, my house looked like a complete wreck and I had accomplished nothing but taking out the trash.

It didn't really seem to get much better over the next couple of days:

I went to turn off the kitchen light but forgot I had a bowl of yogurt and granola in that hand and threw it all over the walls and floor I had just cleaned.

I went to transfer the cat food from the huge 20lbs bags we buy it in to the nice and easy to pour plastic container and instead poured about half of it on the floor, and I can't even count on our cat to clean it up. Zeeba does not eat things that have been on the floor. But ants do, and apparently they really like cat food. It's a good things I only missed a couple pieces on my cleanup search.

I went to buy cute containers to organize my spices but forgot the measurements and ended up buying ones I was 90% sure would fit, except they didn't. They were about 1/4" longer than the cabinets were deep.

The funnel slipped as I was making kefir and I flooded the counters with sugar water...I think you get the picture.

But four days later, my kitchen is clean, really really clean. My counters and floors have been thoroughly cleaned about four times in the last few days, my spices are organized in a simple but effective manner

my jars have tags
I freed up some space by moving the microwave to above the fridge so I have more room for things like making yogurt and kefir and I even fixed up a make shift centerpiece. But I have to tell ya, if each of my projects goes this poorly, I don't think I'm going to make it very far down my list.

My Bus Commute by the Numbers

2009-06-17T08:37:00.000-05:00

In a week of bus trips, here's what I've experienced:

Crazy people: 2
Crazy people that prompted me to call police: 1
Women with more kids than they could handle: 3
Number of kids under age 6 one woman had: 5
Rainstorms I narrowly avoided having to walk through: 3
Missed buses: 0 (so far)
Rides offered by old male passersby: 1 (I declined)
Percentage of my transit costs the government will pick up: 100
Books completed: 1
Asian men with poor English skills trying to make complicated trips: 1 (I tried to help)
Time it would take to drive to work: 7 minutes
Time it takes on bus: 35 minutes

Gone like a freight train

2009-06-15T08:11:00.003-05:00

Well, A&M President Murano resigned. The official meeting should take place in about an hour, but she beat them to the punch when she announced her resignation yesterday.

A friend got the text when we were all out to lunch after church. I've been reading the headlines about what was going on but didn't really obsess over it. I liked Gates, he was great. I didn't like Murano, and nobody else really seemed to either. Now that she is gone, perhaps they will retract that stupid rule saying we have to keep our thermostats at 75 all summer to save energy.

The Batt was amusing this morning though, on the second page was a big picture of Mike McKinney and Elsa Murano hugging at the 2008 Convecation. This is the first and probably only time I will be able to say this but "Well done, Batt."

Although as soon as I started reading what was on the page, I wanted to take back my props. They compiled student reactions found on Twitter and Facebook. I won't give my opinions on the journalistic integrity of that, but I will say that only one of the eleven reactions was in favor of her leaving. The reactions they did include range from A&M is racist and sexist and despite her intelligence and accomplishments she couldn't possibly have succeeded to self-proclaimed conspiracy theories about how Perry is behind it all. I'm not so sure how representative of the University population they are, though, because of all the faculty, staff, and students I've talked to, I've yet to talk to one person in favor of her. The opinions range from against her to apathetic.

But it's just another piece of evidence supporting our theory - whatever the Batt says, believe the opposition and you'll be right.

So what do y'all think. Sad day, good riddance, or who cares?

Have I got a deal for you*

2009-06-13T08:22:00.000-05:00

*said with Larry the cucumber's voice.

Remember back at the beginning of April, I finally splurged and bought some new camis from Shade? What, you don't remember that? Oh, well, go read this (or just believe me).

Anyway, I was ~~raving excessively~~ talking about them to my mom a while back and she told me I had to post the information on my blog because she wouldn't remember the company information (there seems to be something wrong with that, but I'm not sure exactly what?) All that just to say, I've been meaning to write this for a while but hadn't ever gotten around to it. Which is a shame because they are great.

I bought four and it isn't enough. They are so well made. In fact, they felt so substantial when I got them that I was worried they would be too hot. But they are made for layering so while they aren't see through or cheaply made, they are still light and comfortable. You can really believe me on that as I wear one almost every day - in Texas - in the summer - where it is really really hot.

And they are made to be modest. I have a long torso but I never have to worry about these not being long enough. I wear them under sweaters with necklines too low, blouses with fabric too shear, and shirts with hems to high.

I'm actually going to buy more, plus a few t-shirts. I made a skirt and got another one from a thrift store. They are both nice and summer-y but I need solid color t-shirts to go with them. I was at the mall last weekend and thought I would check The Gap, maybe then I wouldn't have to wait for mail to bring my shade stuff. Bad idea. Gap wanted to charge me $18.50 for a little white t-shirt. And it was poorly made - I put my hand in it and it was see through! I'll stick with Shade. I can get them for $10-11 and they often have coupon codes for free shipping or a couple dollars off on their blog.

So now that I have fully convinced you that I love this company (and you should too), here is where the deal comes in. I recently got an email from Shade offering my friends (that would be you) a special deal. I can send you an email for a free cami. You just have to sign up for the weekly email and pay shipping. If you get the cami then decide that it isn't a company you are interested in, just unsubscribe. Easy peasy right?

Now, for full disclosure I want to say that this isn't a blog sponsor thing. This blog isn't really big enough for that. Shade just sent me an email, they don't even know I have a blog. But I will get a coupon for $10 off my next purchase if I can get 5 of y'all signed up on the email list. Which is great for me too.

So if you want to try this, just leave a comment (make sure I have your email somehow, or I won't be able to email the deal to you). Or if you don't want to leave a comment, you could email me at brcbanter @ googlegroups . com